The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1887-07-14
[Ohio Farmer.l
Fruit Instead of Pills.

Why should the American farmer
live all the year on salt pork and fried
potatoes? One of the earliest recol-
lections of my life is the longing |
had to get into city once in a while,
so that [ could get all the Strawberries
| could eat The average boy lives
great deal in his stomach, He has
hearty, unquestioning appetite, and in
the spring and summer he eats with
out question anything that is green.
1t is an instinct of his nature, he
needs the fruit fer the juices, and the
right way to keep him from green
stuff is to give him plenty Of good,
ripe fruit. hi my boyhood on the
farm, as above intimated, | thought
Strawberries, raspberries, grapes and
peaches with creamy were for city
people; while an. occasional mess of
stewed currants, few blackberries
gathered after haying and harvest
were over (no time before) and small
basket of apples dubbed off the trees
and contended for with the pigs that
stood waiting and watching with blue
milk were for farmers. Who can
blame the boy, with natural, healthy
appetite, if he gets tired munching
this old stuff-pork, pickles, biscuit
and potatoes-and rebels against the
farm?
[ have never elsewhere in my life
seen such forcible illustration of the
healthfulness of fruit as is afforded in
this colony. We are here, some forty
families Of Northerners, surrounded
by a population Of Floridians, often
called "crackers." We are fruit-grow-
ers and eat literally Of Strawberries,
peaches, pears, blackberries, plums and
persimmons (Japanese). They are
farmers, and eat pork, pone and sweet
potatoes Many of us came here in
delicate health, while the natives
around us are, or ought to be. as heal
thy as any ordinary farming commu-
nifty. But they are not They are
conspicuously more subject to bilious
fever, headache, liver troubles, ETC.,
than our Northern people, who are at
a disadvantage, to begin with, in be-
ing, as it were, foreigners. | have
often noticed this in the men I have
employed to work for me. They look
with wonder and amazement, at the
heaping fruit dish we set on three
times day; yet they will go home to
their dreary, eternal grind Of pork and
cornbread with an occasional dish Of
rice perhaps), heating and binding
enough to burn their stomachs out in
a few years; and then the next day
they will be unable to work because
Of fever or headache. What won
der?
Now, if the honest Ohio farmer will
insist on buying medicine for his fam
lily, let me suggest to him to try, for
one summer, apples instead of pow
ders, and cherries instead Of pills. Let
ME suggest to him to try, fer once, a
thorough cultivation and care of the
orchard and the small-fruit patch-if
he has one. A great help can be CIV
en- to the orchard by allowing hogs to
run in it; shut out at nights, if de-
sired, in order to secure the dropped
fruit in the morning [ would never
ring hogs nose in the orchard; his
soft, flexible snout gives precisely the
cultivation that is needed, and just
where it is needed, without injuring
the little roots as an iron implement
or plow would do. Then, too, he will
fertilize the trees in the best way it
could be done.